Whereas I am definitely a big fan of cryptocurrencies, I am particularly interested in currencies you can "do" something with, other than just trade as an investment.
I believe Steemit-- and the underlying Steem token -- is uniquely positioned to develop an actual economy, including internal peer-to-peer marketplaces. This, in turn, will benefit everyone in the long term: With an actual economic reason to exist, the Steem token will be head and shoulders above most other coins, and thus look attractive to external investors, which will cause the price of Steem to rise.
@SteemBay and Developing a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace
Beech leaves in fall...
Because of my enthusiasm for developing commerce within the Steemit Community-- that is, trading goods and services without having to "go external" to either fiats, or using Bitcoin as an "intermediate" currency-- I was thrilled when @schererf and @pollux.one announced the @steembay initiative last year.
@steembay is basically an auction/for sale utility bot in the manner of eBay, except it runs within the confines of the Steemit ecosystem, and payment is in SBD... so it's an opportunity to actually use your SBD for something other than buying Steem or BTC! In many ways, it has to potential to become like eBay was, back when it was cool... in the late 1990s when it was almost exclusively used by individuals trading collectibles and art with each other.
To learn more about Steembay, there's both the original introductory post, as well as a quick tutorial. To see what other people are offering, visit @steembay and click on the most recent "Daily Report of Steembay" post... or you can simply click on the#steembay tag, anywhere you come across it!
So I Tried SteemBay-- and it WORKED!
Naturally, I had to "put my money where my mouth was," and support these good folks who were developing a commerce base.
My 2nd @steembay auction: Successfully sold!
My first attempt didn't go so well, but that was really nobody's fault.
I listed my first item for sale in December of 2017, and it just happened to be at the time where SBD suddenly took off from about $1.00 each to about $8.00 each! Naturally, not a lot of people were interested in bidding on an item whose price increased eight-fold in the course of a 7-day listing!
As I said, it was nobody's fault.
When the markets settled a bit, I decided to try again.
My second attempt-- listed on January 21st and ended on January 28th-- was a success! Several people placed bids, and the @steembay bid bot flawlessly kept track of the bidding and declared a final winner when the post expired after seven days.
After the Auction Ended
The whole process was very easy and painless.
At Destination: @rheteric's cat checks out my stone
A quick dialogue between myself and eventual winner @rheteric followed in the post comments; payment was made through FREE and almost INSTANT wallet transfer (try THAT on eBay and PayPal!); I got @rheteric's address information through an encrypted wallet memo, and that was all there was to it!
Then all I had to do was box up the item (one of my painted mandala stones) and mail it to Switzerland. About a week later, the box arrived at its destination.
Too experience "the other end" of the transaction, I encourage you to read the "Unboxing Experience" as @rheteric describes it in his post!
Needless to say, we a both fans of SteemBay and will continue to use-- and encourage others to use-- Steemit as a way to trade with fellow Steemians.
Some Nice Features You Just Don't Get Elsewhere...
There were a few things about this transaction that sets it apart from other experiences I have had with peer-to-peer selling online-- and I say this as a 20-year veteran on using eBay, as well as later marketplaces.
A tiny daisy on our lawn...
First, everything is recorded on the blockchain. So you can always refer back to what happened. But beyond that, everything relating to a transaction is stored in one place: The item, the bidding, communication between buyer and seller, payment.
Fee free and immediate. As I mentioned previously, we're transacting on the fastest blockchain around. And it's free. Selling is free-- no eBay fees; payment is free-- no PayPal fees. Honesty is encouraged because someone not fulfilling their end of the deal will also be permanently recorded on the blockchain. If you get "black marks," odds are people won't trust you again.
Helping out far away buyers. @rheteric lives in Switzerland; I live in the USA. Postage across the Atlantic is not exactly cheap, which might discourage some potential buyers. However, I was able to upvote several of @rheteric's "bid comments" to help offset the 2.00 SBD postage costs I charged. Of course, that's totally optional-- I just chose to do so as a courtesy.
In Conclusion: I Will Definitely Use @SteemBay Again!
And I would encourage you to try it, as well!
Damselfly by the river...
We're still in the early stages of building a "Steem Economy" here, and the system remains under development. However, there have already been quite a few successful transactions for art, coins, services and other things.
A Steem Economy will only come about if we use the features of the site, in this case @steembay. I personally like the auction format which allows potential buyers to set the price by bidding-- in a sense, a variation of arriving at a consensus about something's value.
There are several other initiatives also working on the marketplace angle: @steemgigs, which is more service than product oriented; @steemshop, which is a fixed-price market of both goods and services; @happyme's "The Happy Store" initiative, and long-time contender Peerhub which is outside the Steemit community but none-the-less accepts Steem and SBD as forms of payment.
How About YOU? Have you used any of Steemit's "commerce" initiatives? Do you think you are likely to? Do you think it would be a positive for the Steemit community to have a fully functional peer-to-peer marketplace? Do you like the idea of "fee free" online trading? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
Animated banner created by @zord189
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180212 21:48 PST
THX for the shoutout and the positive review. Glad you like the service, we offer and that it worked fine for you. We focus more on making it work better than on marketing at the moment, but our userbase grows each week.
As you said... the philosophy behind @steembay was to use crypto without the detour of fiat money and in a much cheaper way than the established versions of online auctioning.
I want to point at a thing:
Our only real income stream at the moment are the rewards from our daily report, which is at the same time a great way to promote all active auctions.
Resteemed by steembay ;-)
Thanks for the comment @pollux.one!
It is early days still. I see no reason why this will not develop into having maybe 1000 auctions going at any given moment. I'm not sure how you would organize the daily reports then (maybe have different categories, each with its own daily report?), but I would guess by then your income from posts and comments would easily run to 100's if not 1000's of SBD per day. And so I wish you much success!
THX, I still hope... ofc.
The daily reports could be organised by langage as a first step, later by category. Will need some manpower to do so if we get 100+ auctions ;-)
I'll have to look into steembay. I heard about it a couple of months ago. This can be huge for the ecosystem. And I think this will only help increase the utility of steem.
Pretty much 100% the reason for by enthusiasm about this initiative. You can offer services, a product, art, whatever... and technically speaking, we never have to leave the Steemit ecosystem; no fiat involvement, not even an intermediary exchange to BTC.
That HAS to be good for everyone; makes it look good to investors which will strengthen Steem. Meanwhile, most of us need goods and services... and I would far rather use a peer-to-peer market of individuals than give my money to some soulless corporation.
Nice review of @steembay. I have yet to use it but no I want to check it out.
I was just having a conversation with a guy at work about Steemit and how I like it due to it’s actually usage outside of just a speculative tool.
Thanks! To me, one of the greatest assets here is precisely that Steem (the token) has a lot of functional applications... and I think that may be part of what gained us the favorable rating recently from a major crypto rating service. This community is a LOT more than just a bunch of empty promises and using the phrase "blockchain" 47 times in a white paper.
So true.
I have not heard of @steembay before, I will have to take a look at them. I really think that Steem has a massive potential outside the social media space as well, and I am glad to see people actually using it.
Well, it makes me quite happy to see the "economic" side of Steemit being developed... I believe one of the things that will make this currency stand apart in the long term is that it has a viable economic reason/base for existing.
hey @denmarkguy, what a cool post! It certainly opens up the doors to all kinds of commerce, doesn't it? I find it so interesting, and my business mind-wheels are turning, but on the other hand, I don't know if I want this platform to be a buy 'n sell also(I know it would only be a small part of it...or would it?). It's a really interesting question you pose, and it's not one I have the answer to :) I'm glad it worked for you though! I wonder if it would be a positive influence on not only this platform, but for STEEM as a whole? I realize that I'm only offering more questions for you haha, but like I said, you've got my wheels turning...which is always a good thing. As an aside, I saw in the comments how to "hide" your comments in a wallet transaction...great info to know. Thanks for this, and cheers!
I appreciate your points @lynncoyle1; thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I look at Steemit and its surrounding apps as an entire ecosystem; far more than just a blogging/content platform. I see the potential here to create-- for all intents and purposes-- our won internal economy, where we can trade with each other, using Steem... and totally bypassing the world of banks and dollars and cents. The homesteaders can trade gardening supplies using Steem. Artists can do so to sell their art.
The central Steemit platform is sort of like the "town newspaper." We can still be writers and bloggers and whatever else.
Part of my enthusiasm comes from seeing commerce as "differentiation." When an investor looks to put money somewhere in the crypto markets, where will it go? There are 1000's of tokens... but if you can see one that revolves around a thriving economy and compare it to others that are just "promises," where would you invest?
You're welcome...thoughtful commenting is all I know:) The pithy comments drive me crazy...but I think those get weeded out soon enough.
Your last 'question' is actually a really good point!! So yes then...here's to creating a 'thriving economy' !!
Thanks for the update on how this went @denmarkguy and congrats on your sale.
I definitely want to try this at tome point with my art. I have too many other things going on at the moment to take this on as well but I think it might actually be a good motivator for me at some point.
One of they by products of creating as having too many pieces to hang so the just end up lying around. It would be great to be able to send them to happy homes.
Looking forward to following your next auction!
You're quite right, it can be hard to find time for it all! And I have quite a few creative projects lying around that need "another 10 minutes" to be finished.
I'm just excited about the possibilites this offers to the community, as a whole. Everyone-- from investors to bloggers to artists-- benefit, if the presence of a marketplace add credibility to Steem, which raises interest, which raised the price of the token... everybody wins!
That is great to hear you were able to sell one! That transaction speed and no free transfer of funds is an amazing thing for our ecosystem. It is a shame rest of cryptocurrency is not taking a bigger advantage of it.
I have never used this process myself as I have nothing I wish to sell on Steemit at this time. Just knowing a service like this exists is amazing. Just I ever have a need to sell things online for cryptocurrency.
And not everyone is into online trading... but the whole process was pretty cool!
I'm seeing this as a potential tertiary market for some of my art, and maybe some paper collectibles. We'll see how much traction it gets; I'd like to think it could become a really popular feature around here. The appeal to me is the notion of trading purely in our own currency without having to change to fiat or even BTC.
Some great information. I may have to try steembay to sell some of my art. Question though, when you mentioned getting his address in an encrypted wallet memo.... what/how is that?
It's a little known Steemit feature few people are aware of. Short version: Let's say you need to send someone your address here, and you don't want the whole world to see it.
So, we can include a memo when we transfer funds with our wallets. If you start the memo with "# " (hashtag + space) the content of the memo is encrypted so only the sender and recipient can see it. Everyone else-- logged in or otherwise-- will just see a blank memo field.
If you use a blockchain viewer, I believe the memo field will just show up as a long string of jumbled characters. Now where the encryption key actually resides, that I don't know.
Wow! Yes, I definitely didn't know that. Thanks for the information!
Thanks so much for asking the question @customnature. I wasn't aware of how to keep a memo private either. Something you would obviously need to do when supplying details like your address or phone number.
That is super cool. The rock looked really interesting as well and I can tell you put a lot of effort into it. Your recipient seemed very happy.
Thanks-- it seemed like a positive experience all around, and I'm definitely going to try again, not just with artwork, but also with other types of items.
Im definitely in here. Already know what items I will offer initially.
It's definitely worth a try. It'll take a little while to become super active, but I'm happy to support the initiative now.
Hello @denmarkguy
Thank you so much for the shoutout and the resteem, helped a lot!
Your first sentence is very important. I have the same feeling about cryptocurrencies. Of course they can and should be used as a salary of some sort if you do a lot on this plattform but I have a feeling most other cryptos and coins are gamefied. I mean they seem to only exist because of speculation games. This might be an opportunity to get some quick money but everything you get is a loss of someone else. I think this is important to note.
Cryptos should not be a game. We are building an alternative to fiat currency but as long as there are these huge ups and downs they can't really replace any other currency. We need a stable currency that allows you to calculate in the future.
This Stone has a worth of 8$ or 64$ and this makes it hard to calculate your real gain of this transaction.
It would be even more mad if it fluctuates between 0.01$ and 1000$. A currency that can make these kind of jumps is highly dangerous.
It's sad that you could not sell your first object on @steembay but as you said it is nobodys fault. It was just not known by enough people to find the right buyer that was willing to pay for that. The price-fluctuation made the situation even worse.
I think the more people know about these kind of projects the more attention you'll get with future auctions. I'm certanly looking forward to engage in more auctions.
Steembay is very well done. I liked it a lot and it was flawless. The bot reacted pretty fast and all the "paperwork" was done in seconds. This project has a big future and I am proud to be a part of it. Thanks again.
Your kind way of upvoting some comments to compensate for the shipping cost was absolutely great. That is the big advantage this plattform has over ebay for example. It did not matter for me, I was willing to pay whatever you needed dor the shipping cost but you @denmarkguy solved that brilliant. I hope more people adapt this tactic because a lot is only aviable for US-Steemians.
Switzerland was probably one of the worst countries to ship something because we are not even in the EU, haha. Glad you did it regardless!
What I don't want is that Steemit gets reduced to just a selling plattform but this kind of economy should not hurt the plattform in any way.
Thanks again for the well written post and the inclusion of my little curious Marley:)
Cheers mate!
You're a good knowledge person about writing and it's very difficult.
Your job is excellent story.
Thanks
Nice post thanks for sharing....
wow...nice post @denmarkguy . i like your The Steemit and Steem Economy is WORKING! post. thanks for share the post.
good writing. love to read it...
thanks for sharing.
You're so incredibly intelligent! I don't know anything about programming and it seems that so many Steemians are so technically advanced. I almost feel a little out of place lol. But hopefully I can gain a following through my journey here on steemit :) Keep up the great work! Someone's gotta be brains around here ;)
Another lovely post I see! here @denmarkguy beautifull explined
resteem
Amazing and very interessing post thank you for sharing really very helpfull to us
resteemed and shared in the steemit
Came here after reading @rheteric's article about receiving your Alchemy-Stone.
I was so happy to see this example of how the Steemit Community can support each other in the fair trading of our own products without additional fees or encumberments.
I wasn't aware of @steembay until now or the others you have mentioned but I'll definitely look at them all now.
I produced a desktop calendar at the end of 2017 ~ Too late for @steembay now, unfortunately. However, I will be producing a 2019 Calendar and would love to be able to sell it here at Steemit.
Like Gillian @gillianpearce I'd like to place original artworks on a Steemit Market Place ~ Undecided until I look at the other places you have mentioned, as to which venues would be suited for more highly priced items. Any hints? Because I also have some gems that I'd love to see go to homes where they would be loved, rather than remain unseen in my studio. 🦋